51-Year-Old Credits Mountain Biking for His Sub-17:00 5Ks

On successive weekends in September, 51-year-old Mark Hixson of Connecticut won a major masters 5K title in Rhode Island and a grueling 50-mile mountain bike race title in Vermont. The 5K demonstrated Hixson’s speed, the bike event showed his strength. Hixson is counting on both attributes as he prepares to tackle a pair of upcoming national cross-country races in Florida.

Hixson, who lives in Simsbury and competes for the Hartford Track Club, has combined running and bicycling to become a decade-long force on the masters running scene. He has not only excelled in his age group, but won some races outright, such as his 2014 Danbury Half Marathon victory, at 49, in 1:14:47.

While he has medaled at many national masters-only track, road, and cross-country races, an age-group victory at such an event has eluded him. Now Hixson hopes to get first masters title, in the 50-54 age-group, in the national 5K cross-country championships, on November 6 in Tallahassee, Florida. On December 10 at the same site, Hixson will run the national club cross-country championship, which has a strong masters emphasis.

On September 18 in Providence, Hixson ran 16:55 to capture the 50-54 title in the USA national 5K for runners of all ages. Hixson’s time made him the fastest men’s master overall, ahead of all competitors in their 40s. (One female masters did beat him—three-time Olympian Jen Rhines, 42, who ran 16:29.)

It was Hixson’s fifth straight year running the Providence event. In 2013, he ran 15:58. The first three years his times were 16:10, 15:58 and 16:03. Last year he ran 16:45. Hixson attributes his recent slower times to a hamstring injury that prevented him from running from January to June both this year and last. “I still have visions of sub-16:00,” he said. “I know it’s there.”

Hixson typically runs six days a week, logging 40 to 50 miles, with a two-hour bike ride on Sundays. He can run out his door and onto the Metacomet Trail System, part of the New England National Scenic Trail, which stretches 215 miles through Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Hixson does two key running workouts. One is long hill repeats of 2 ½ to 3 minutes. Hixson does up to 10 reps, jogging down for recovery, to build leg strength. The other session is track intervals. Hixson runs 4 x 400, then a mile, then 6 x 400. He starts his 400s in 77 seconds and works down to 72 for the last one.

On the track, Hixson is helped by a neighbor, David Poirot, who serves as his rabbit. Hixson gives Poirot a head start and tries to chase him down. “He knows I’m coming so it helps him run faster too,” he says.

Getting in Gear

This type of partnership is also a big part of Hixson’s mountain biking success. On September 25, in the 25th annual Vermont 50, Hixson competed for the ninth year in a row on a tandem bike. His partner each year has been Art Roti, a 43-year-old friend who lives near Hixson in Granby.

With few tandems in the event, a Hixson-Roti win in the category is typically a given. Still, there’s much more to tandem racing than you might think. Hixson and Roti switch off riding front and back. The front rider, or captain, handles navigating, gear shifting, steering, braking, and more. The back rider, called the stoker, uses pedaling technique to swing the bike and move it around, responding to the front moves, and, from his vantage point, is always on the lookout for the next turn. As Hixson puts it, “He’s the backseat driver.”

While the two riders must work in unison, their pedaling is not necessarily synchronized because of the various obstacles on the course, much of it single-track. The Vermont event—which also includes a 50-mile run—is held at Mount Ascutney, a former ski area. The bike route has numerous switchbacks and 8,900 feet of climbing, requiring the leg power of a speed skater and the aerobic capacity of a marathoner.

Cycles of Success

Hixson started biking after running in college, at Southern Connecticut State. He grew up in Connecticut, and when his father, William, a runner, competed in races against the likes of New England legends like John Vitale and Amby Burfoot, young Mark would tag along.

In his 20s, Hixson ran one marathon, in 2:36, and then got into mountain biking for the freedom of it. “When I’m in the woods,” he says, “I’m in my comfort zone.”

While competing in bike races, Hixson did no running for 10 years, from age 30 to 40, before resuming in the masters ranks. Initially, he made the rookie mistake of trying to replicate his college program of 70 miles a week, and got injured. Before long, on lower mileage, he started placing high in national masters cross-country events.

Hixson believes that his fitness and skill from bicycling—his longest event was a 101-miler two years ago in the central Pennsylvania wilderness—transfer to running, especially in cross-country, with its frequent turns, rough ground, and change of terrain. “In cross-country, you need to be a thinking runner,” he says.

For all his competitive goals, Hixson’s main purpose in running is to maintain harmony and good health. “My running is mainly for mental balance,” he says. “You need to find your space and enjoy life. I still feel like I’m 40.” Hixson, a vegetarian, is proud of taking no medications and stunning his doctors with his ultra-clean medical profile.

Hixson’s role model is 95-year-old Bill Tribou, a Hartford Track Club teammate who has been running since the 1940s and was a 4:14 miler when that was a national-class time. At local races, after Hixson crosses the line, he goes back into the field to accompany Tribou to the finish.

After one race, Tribou, exhausted, had trouble zipping up his running jacket. Hixson went over to him and said, “Let me help you with that, Bill.” Reflecting on the encounter, Hixson says, “One day when I’m running races in my 90s, I hope someone does that for me.”

Marc BloomMarc Bloom’s high school cross-country rankings have played an influential role in the sport for more than 20 years and led to the creation of many major events, including Nike Cross Nationals and the Great American Cross Country Festival.

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